


The Substitute

by Grensgeval



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2018-09-14 07:19:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 16,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9167956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grensgeval/pseuds/Grensgeval
Summary: While on assignment, undercover agent Emily Prentiss meets college soccer star Jennifer Jareau. AU. Eventual JJ/Emily.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is a short one, a teaser if you will. Don't worry, the next ones will be longer. 
> 
> Also, this story might seem familiar, as I have posted this on fanfiction.net ages ago. 
> 
> Feel free to leave me a comment, telling me what you think!

It is dark outside. A young man is leaning against his car, waiting. A cigarette is burning between his shaking fingers, lighting up as he takes a drag from it. He taps his foot nervously, and only stops when he sees a car approaching him. It stops ten yards from him. Eyes unfocussed, he looks at the car, and when his foggy mind registers the headlights blink at him, like eyes, he walks over.

The window is rolled down, an arm hangs out, palm up, waiting. The man fumbles in his pockets, looking for the cash he had managed to scrape together. He puts the money in the waiting hand, and his eyes lit up when he gets a small package in return. No words are exchanged. The car speeds off, but the young man doesn't even notice. His eyes are fixated only on the package.

Later that day, someone walks into his dorm room to find his roommate lying on his bed, a syringe still sticking out of his arm. Blood trickles out of the wound, but it doesn't matter. Cold, lifeless eyes are proof that it causes no pain. Watching the needle find a vein, and the clear liquid leaving the syringe, will be the last thing those eyes will have been witness to.

A scream. Footsteps running closer. More screams. Soon, the area is filled with sounds and movement, but none of it matters for that one young man, with his lifeless eyes staring off into nothing.


	2. Chapter 1

Emily Prentiss was feeling pretty good this Friday morning. She had woken up well rested, and she had a calm, easy day at work to look forward to. Her boss had finally started to believe she got her job on her own merit, without her mother’s help, which meant that she no longer got all the shitty jobs to do.

And to make her day even better, her mother finally seemed to have gotten the hint to stop setting Emily up with sons of her friends, in the hope something might come of it. (“He’s such a nice young man, Emily. And he’s a doctor.”) Most Friday nights, her mother arranged blind dates for Emily to go on, but tonight, all she had to look forward to was a nice evening out with her friends.

Yes, things were looking pretty great for Emily Prentiss this morning. She was preparing herself for a calm day at work, but it seemed the powers that be had other plans with her.

“Agent Prentiss, can I see you in my office please?” Aaron Hotchner, her boss, asked the second Emily stepped out of the elevator.

“Of course, sir.”

She dropped her bag on her desk on the way to the unit chief’s office, and followed her boss inside.

“Close the door, please,” Hotchner said, who was already sitting behind his desk, looking over a case file.

_Oh God, that doesn’t sound good_ , Emily thought.

“Agent Prentiss, you’ve been assigned to an undercover operation.”

“Sir?”

Hotchner turned the file over to Emily, who quickly read through it. Her eyes immediately fell on the picture on the first page. It showed a young man, barely twenty years old. His eyes were still open, but he was clearly dead.

“His name is Samuel Demming, nineteen years old. He’s the third OD we found this week, seventh overall. Five of those seven victims were students at Riverdale University. We believe that heroine traffickers are using Riverdale as their playground. The FBI and DEA have set up a joint operation, and we’ve been monitoring the school for almost two months now, but so far we haven’t found any more leads. We don’t even know whether it’s the teachers or the students we have to look out for.”

Agent Hotchner looked up from his file to look Emily directly in the eye.

“That’s where you come in. We want you to go undercover as a teacher there, and see what you can find out.”

“But sir, don’t you think someone else might be more qualified for this?” Emily asked.

She was grateful and honored that he thought of her, of course. An operation like this was a great opportunity. But she was only a rookie, and this was obviously an important investigation.

“The only available position was that of Spanish teacher. You’re the only one in this division who speaks Spanish.”

_What? No I’m not._

“Sir, with all due respect, that’s not true. Jenkins and Maynard both speak Spanish fluently,” Emily objected.

“Jenkins is on maternity leave, and Maynard is nearing pension age, he would never be able to connect with the students.”

“But sir, I’ve only been here for two months, I don’t think I’m –“ Emily tried, but Hotchner wouldn’t have it.

“Look, Emily,” he started, and his voice softened. “I wouldn’t have suggested you if I didn’t think you could handle it. You’re a good agent; you’re smart, intuitive, and you can hold your own in a fight. You’re ready for this.”

Emily sighed, but inside she was overjoyed. This was the chance she had been waiting for.  At barely 24 years old, she had managed to get herself a spot on the Organized Crime Department of the FBI, but so far, her hard work had been unnoticed. Or so she had thought. Apparently, her boss had been paying closer attention than she was aware of.

“I know you don’t have any undercover experience, so that’s why you won’t be alone,” Hotchner continued. “Agent Morgan is already at the school. He started there as a security guard, but he hasn’t been able to find anything. But let’s face it, if you’re dealing drugs, you’re not gonna confide in Morgan.”

Emily smiled. It’s true, if there’s anyone who just screams ‘cop’, it’s Morgan.

“Okay, when do I start?” she asked, finally convinced.

“Next week. Wendy Turner, the regular teacher, is going on maternity leave at the end of this week, so you’ll be taking over on Monday. You’ll receive your schedule and students and teachers’ lists tomorrow,” Hotchner said.

He looked back to his file, and Emily took it as a sign that the conversation was over, so she stood up from her chair.

“Oh, and Prentiss,” Hotchner called her back. “The school has no idea who you are, let’s try to keep it that way. Your background story should be on your desk by now, take the time to study it carefully.”

“I will. Thank you, Agent Hotchner,” Emily responded, both thanking him for the info and for the opportunity.

“You’re welcome. And call me Hotch,” the agent replied, sporting a rare smile.


	3. Chapter 2

Jennifer Jareau, JJ for her friends, was a busy girl. She had classes to attend, tests to study for, essays to write, homework to do, and soccer. Always soccer. Soccer games, soccer parties, and soccer practice. Which she was late for, right now.

She ran over the field, passing her teammates who were already busy warming up, and entered the locker room in a hurry. She got dressed in record time, and luckily, she was on the field right before her coach joined them. She shot a look in the sky and thanked whoever might be up there that her coach was also late.

Coach Winters, a woman in her mid-thirties with a personality as cold as her name suggests, did not care at what time you arrived, as long as it was before her. If you were later, she could be vicious, and JJ shuddered when she remembered the last time she was late.

“Girl, you are so lucky,” her friend Amy whispered to her.

“I know,” JJ muttered back.

They finished warming up and took their places on the field. They had a routine for practice, so every girl knew what was expected from her. Practice went by without a hitch, which was unusual. The coach normally found something to complain about in her players, but not today. _Coach must be in a good mood_ , JJ thought.

After taking a quick shower, JJ left the locker room talking animatedly with Amy, one of her closest friends who was also on the team.

“You know, I like this new training schedule way better,” JJ said. 

For some reason, coach Winters had changed the evening practices to mornings. Some of the players were happy with that change. Most, however, hated getting up at the crack of dawn, especially during winter.

“Really? I hate it. I liked the old schedule way better.”

“That’s only because you can’t get out of bed before noon,” JJ teased, nudging her friend in the shoulder.

“True,” Amy agreed good-heartedly. “So, wanna get some coffee?”

“I can’t, I have Spanish class,” JJ declined.

“Oh, right. You’ll have to explain to me why you take that class again. It’s not even in your course.”

“I like it,” JJ defended her choice for the extra class. “And besides, you never know when you might need it.”

They headed in the direction of the school building. JJ’s class started soon, and she didn’t want to be late for the second time that day.

“Yeah, right. As if you’ll ever learn something useful from ‘Wicked Wendy’,” Amy snickered.

“Yeah, so far classes haven’t been really useful,” JJ admitted.

They had entered the building now, but someone they hadn’t seen on campus before stopped them.

“Excuse me? I’m looking for room 10B, do you know where I can find that?” she asked them.

JJ couldn’t answer. Room 10B happened to be the room she was heading for, but looking at the gorgeous brunette standing in front of her, she seemed to have forgotten how to form words.

Amy saw that JJ was going to be of no use at all, so she directed the woman to the right room.

“Thank you,” the woman smiled, and she went on her way.

_Wow_ , JJ thought, as she watched the retreating form of the hot new girl. Then Amy snapped her fingers in front of JJ’s face.

“Close your mouth, it’s not attractive.”

JJ looked up.

“Who is she? Is she new here?” she asked.

Riverdale was a fairly small university, and JJ thought she knew most of the students. The pretty girls, at least, and this one definitely fell into that category.

“I don’t know, but judging by the look on your face, you’ll find out soon enough. God, you’re practically drooling.”

“Hey, I do not drool!” JJ objected. “And I appreciate beauty when I see it, is that so wrong?”

“No, but it’s a good thing you only make a fool of yourself the first time you ‘see beauty’, otherwise you’d never get laid.”

“That, my friend, is very true,” JJ grinned. “Now come on, I don’t wanna be late for class.”

“You’re only saying that because your black beauty will be in your class,” Amy said laughing.

“Again, very true,” JJ smiled back.

“Okay, I’m heading back to my dorm, see you later,” Amy announced.

“Bye.”

Walking towards her classroom, she passed the brunette again, and saw she was talking on her phone. Trying not to stare too much, she went inside, looking for her friend who was supposed to save her a seat. She scanned the room for bright colors and groaned when she spotted her friend. She was sitting in the front row, which she wasn’t a big fan of, especially if she’d had to spend the entire class looking at Wicked Wendy up close. She dropped down on her chair, and greeted her friend.

“Hi, Garcia.”

“Oh, hi, my sparkling furry gummibear.”


	4. Chapter 3

“Prentiss,” Emily said, picking up her phone after looking around to see nobody could overhear.

_“Emily, it’s Hotch. We think we have a lead.”_

“Really? That’s good news.”

_“Local PD arrested a drug dealer last night. We had the drugs tested, and the lab confirmed that it’s the same type as our traffickers’. We’re questioning him right now.”_

“Has he said anything yet?” she asked, as she watched students enter the classroom.

_“Not yet, but we’re working on it.”_

“Okay. But sir, if you’ll excuse me, my class starts in a few minutes. Wouldn’t want to be late on my first day, now would I,” she joked.

_“Of course. Good luck, and I’ll keep you posted.”_

She pocketed her phone and took a deep breath as she prepared to enter the room. _Come on, Prentiss, you can do this_ , she mentally prepared herself. When she walked inside, she was completely in character, ready to teach her first class. She walked to the front of the room, but was stopped when she wanted to pass the front row.

“Hey, new girl,” she heard, as she felt a hand on her arm, preventing her from walking further.

She had to remember that she was in a school now, were people weren’t likely to attack her, so instead of grabbing the arm and twisting it behind the assailant’s back, she turned around to see who stopped her.

It was the girl from before, she noticed. Emily had asked her, and her friend, for directions to the classroom, because they seemed to know their way around. And the fact that the girl was totally hot might have something to do with it as well.

“You might not wanna do that,” the blonde continued. “Miss Turner is really weird about other people sitting in her chair, and now with the hormones… I wouldn’t try it.”

Emily looked at her amusedly.

“Thanks for the warning, but I think I’ll manage,” she said smiling.

She continued her way, and standing with her back to the blackboard, she addressed the class.

“Buenos dias a todos. Me llamo Lauren Reynolds, y seré vuestra profesora para los meses que vienen.”

JJ looked at her friend dumbfounded.

“She’s a teacher? Oh God, kill me now,” she groaned.

“Don’t be ridiculous. So you mistook her for a student, no biggie,” Garcia answered.

JJ didn’t respond, she just kept on looking at their new teacher.

“Wait a minute, you like her, don’t you?” Garcia asked excitedly. “Oooh, this is gonna be so much fun.”

“Shut up,” JJ hissed.

Emily had given her students a moment to adjust, but when she saw a couple of blank faces in the audience, she asked:

“Okay, is there anyone who didn’t understand a word I just said?”

A couple of hands went up in the air, as she suspected.

“Okay then. As I was saying, my name is Lauren Reynolds, and I will be your teacher for the next couple of months. I will be substituting for Miss Turner during her maternity leave, and I want to start out by saying that I don’t have a problem with anyone sitting in my chair, as long as you don’t leave drawing pins on it or something,” she said, smiling as she looked in the direction of the cute blonde that had warned her earlier.

Her joked earned her a laugh from the students, but the blonde, whose name she had yet to find out, faceplanted into the table, as the girl next to her patted her on the back.

Pleased with the response from her audience, she continued.

“Bueno, abrid vuestros libros a la página 37.”

She waited.

“That means, open your books at page 37,” she translated, as she saw that only a few students had understood her.

The blonde was one of them, she noticed.

_Don’t get distracted now,_ she chided herself. _You’re here on the job._

She continued her lesson, and although she thought she was doing well, she was glad it was over. She sank in her chair as she began the collect her things, and put them in her bag.

_Thank God I only have one class today_ , she thought.

She locked her room and left. On her way out of the building, she passed two security guards, Morgan being one of them. She didn’t let it show that she recognized him, as to not blow her cover, but instead nodded at the two of them and went to find her car.

She was glad she lived in DC. The ride to Quantico was a bitch each day, but the university was only a ten minutes’ drive away.

At home, she poured herself a glass of wine before she settled herself on her couch. She had brought the case file home, and she decided she might as well get some work done, so she started studying the student list her boss had provided her with.

The first thing she did was flipping through the pictures that were included in the file. She quickly found out that the cute blonde’s name was Jennifer Jareau, and that her picture did not do her justice.

After spending too much time staring at the picture, she worked her way through the rest of the list, trying to retain as much information as she could. She couldn’t help it that her mind kept drifting to the young blonde that had gotten her attention from the first second she saw her.


	5. Chapter 4

“Okay class, that’s it for today. I know we still have fifteen minutes to go, but does anyone mind we leave it at this?”

As expected, none of the students had any objections to an early start for the weekend. Emily saw the majority of her students already packing their stuff away, and she couldn’t blame them. Friday afternoon was not the most pleasant time for classes.

“Make sure you have read the chapter about the subjunctive for next class, and have a good weekend,” she said when the students started to leave.

She put her books in her bag, checked her phone for messages, and then left as well. Locking up the door, she saw someone walking towards her.

“Ms Reynolds, nice to see you,” Morgan greeted.

“Mr Martin, nice to see you as well,” Emily politely returned the greeting, using his undercover alias. “How are you today?”

“Oh, same old, same old. Nothing much to do around here, so I’ve had a calm day.”

“Lucky you. I’ve had classes all day, and those students aren’t in my class because they’re so interested in the Spanish language,” Emily sighed.

“Yeah, you really drew the short straw on the teacher’s position,” Morgan grinned.

“Oh, but it isn’t all bad,” Emily responded with a smile, thinking about a certain young blonde she got to look at a few times a week.

“Do tell,” Morgan pried with a grin, but Emily didn’t elaborate.

“That’s none of your business, Mr Martin,” she laughed, and after looking around carefully, she continued, “so, have you found anything yet?”

“Nothing,” Morgan sighed, “I’ve been doing random locker searches and bag checks, but so far nothing. You?”

“Same. I’ve been trying to listen in to conversations, talking to students, but nothing’s come up. We’ll just have to try again next week, I guess.”

She readjusted her bag on her shoulder and made ready to leave, but Morgan stopped her.

“Whoa, not so fast there, Princess. We’ve still got all night to find something. There’s a bar just off campus where the students like to hang out. We can go there, do some more snooping,” Morgan suggested.

“Won’t that be weird? A teacher going to a student hangout?”

“Of course not. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to go out, and it’s not like we have many places to choose from that are close. You’re young enough to fit in, and they barely know you anyway. So, what do you say, Ms Reynolds, can I interest you in a drink or two?” he asked, with his most charming smile.

“Well, when you put it like that, how can I refuse?” Emily answered with a flirty smile.

“Great. I’m on duty ‘till nine, is it okay if we just meet at the bar then?”

“Sure, I’ll see you then.”

The two said goodbye, and Emily left for her car, heading home.

Later that night, she was at the bar, waiting for Morgan to arrive. She was a bit early, so she just stood watching students enter the bar, and wondered whether one of them was who they were looking for. Suddenly, she saw a familiar blonde pass her by, and she called out to her.

“Hey.”

JJ turned around, and smiled when she recognized her new teacher.

“You’re in my Spanish class, right?” Emily continued.

She was only being polite. Of course she remembered the girl, she knew exactly who she was.

“Hi, Ms Reynolds. Yes, I’m in your class. How are you?” JJ asked, a bit hesitant to start a conversation.

She didn’t want to be rude to this woman, since she was the one who would be grading her papers and such, but also because she had found that she was intrigued by this gorgeous woman with the dark brown hair, and she wanted to spend time with her. But, her friends were waiting for her inside, and she was already running late.

“Are you coming in?” she asked, hoping she’d get to see another side of Lauren Reynolds.

“Not yet. I’m waiting for someone, I think I’m just gonna stay outside ‘till he gets here,” Emily answered. “But hey, aren’t you a sophomore? Are you even old enough to be visiting bars like this?” she continued.

“What, do you want to see my ID or something?” JJ asked defiantly.

“Well, now that you’re offering…” Emily said with a smile.

JJ sighed and started rummaging through her purse, trying to find her – fake – ID. When she found it, she showed it to Emily, hoping that she didn’t know her name yet, and didn’t see that it was a fake driver’s license.

Emily had to suppress a grin when she saw it. It was so obviously fake, that she wondered how the blonde had ever managed to get inside a bar with it.

“Well, Miss Brenda Carmichael,” she started, handing the card back, ”you may be older than you look, but I don’t believe for a second that you’re 28 years old.”

_Busted_ , JJ thought.

“Well, do you think you can maybe turn a blind eye for me?” she tried. “The bouncers do.”

“I’m afraid not.  Becoming involved in illegal activity in my first week wouldn’t be a great start for my teaching career, wouldn’t you think?” Emily said, not being able to completely hide the smile that was forming on her mouth. It wasn’t that she had a problem with the girl using a fake ID, but she knew that if Jennifer was in the same bar as her, she would never be able to do her job. She would be too distracted by the blonde’s presence, and she couldn’t have that.

“Too bad. I would have liked the chance to see you dance,” JJ responded with a wink, not in the least fazed by the fact that she was caught with a fake ID.

“Who knows, maybe I’d have even joined you for one,” she continued.

_Is she really flirting with me?_ Emily thought. _Wow, she really knows no shame._

“Well, just wait ‘till you’re old enough, and maybe you’ll get your chance then,” Emily responded, grinning widely by now, and JJ knew all hope to get into the bar was lost.

“Oh well, have a good night then, I guess,” JJ said as she turned around.

“You too. And for the record: I think Jennifer suits you better,” Emily called after her, her smile apparent in her voice.

JJ cringed when she heard that Ms Reynolds knew exactly who she was. But in her embarrassed state of mind, she did catch the compliment on her name, and she did an internal happy dance at that. But then she realized how ridiculous she was acting, getting excited over a stupid name compliment, so she shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, and went back home thinking about anything other than her gorgeous substitute teacher.


	6. Chapter 5

Next Monday found JJ sitting on the stretch of grass on campus. She had woken up early that day, and her roommate Garcia had basically kicked her out of their room. The colorful girl had been playing some online game and had gotten really into it, and when JJ had started asking questions and trying to engage her in conversation, Garcia had turned around on her chair and looked at JJ.

“JJ, honey, I love you to pieces, but if you don’t stop talking now, I’ll email you so many viruses you’ll get sick yourself.”

After that, she had turned back to her computer without a further word, and JJ, being familiar with her friend’s skills on a computer, had simply gotten dressed and left. After getting breakfast, she still had over an hour to kill before soccer practice began. She decided to enjoy the moment of peace and quiet and sat down on the grass.

Due to the cold, there weren’t many people out, so she was startled when someone suddenly sat down next to her. She was even more shocked when she saw it was Ms. Reynolds.

“Good morning,” the raven-haired woman greeted.

“Good morning,” JJ returned the greeting with a smile. “What brings you here so early?”

“I needed to go over some things, so I came in early. I saw you sitting here and I thought I’d come say hi. So hi,” Emily replied with a dazzling smile. “What about you? Aren’t you cold here?”

“My roommate kicked me out, so I’m waiting here ‘till practice begins,” JJ explained. “And this is nothing. I grew up in Pennsylvania, this is basically spring for me.”

“I see. What did you do to get kicked out of your own room?”

“Hey! I’m offended, what makes you think I did something,” JJ replied in mock-offense.

“Well, I caught you trying to sneak in a bar with a fake ID, so I can only imagine you’re a trouble-maker,” Emily teased.

“Oh, you have no idea,” JJ replied with a saucy grin.

Emily didn’t know what to say to that, so JJ continued.

“I didn’t do anything this morning, however. My roommate was playing an online game and couldn’t use the company. I actually think she met someone and was chatting with him.”

“Really,” Emily asked surprised. “Does she do that a lot?”

“Well, she plays online games a lot, but she’s never been this obsessive about it, so I think it’s the first time she’s done this,” JJ replied after thinking it over for a while.

“Well, tell her to be careful. You never know who’s on the other side,” Emily told JJ, a hint of worry apparent in her voice.

“Of course. I was already planning to,” JJ replied, touched that Ms. Reynolds cared so much.

“Anyway, how was your weekend,” Emily changed the subject.

“It was good. Not as exciting as I would’ve hoped, but good enough. What about yours? Did you have fun at the bar?”

“It was okay, I guess. It was a bit awkward, being surrounded by people who I’m supposed to teach, so I didn’t stay very long,” Emily admitted.

“Hey, there’s nothing awkward about wanting to enjoy yourself. I’m sure you fit right in,” JJ assured her.

Emily just nodded, and thought about how amazing it was that she was having such a nice conversation with Jennifer, but she also found it a bit strange. _I never had such open conversations with my teachers_ , Emily thought. And suddenly it struck her that she was talking to a student. About non-academic related issues. Some might even call what they were doing flirting. _Oh, shit!_ She quickly stood up, causing JJ to look up at her in surprise.

“I, uh, I gotta go. See you in class.”

And Emily left.

_What the hell?_ JJ thought, watching her teacher’s retreating form.

Meanwhile, Emily was mentally berating herself. _Goddammit, Prentiss, get a grip. You’re not here to pick up girls, reign it in._ She briefly wondered if that’s people would normally have to take classes before being allowed to teach; to get used to the boundaries between students and teachers, even if they’re barely three years younger than yourself, and you’re wildly attracted to them.

As she made her way to the bleachers Emily silently, but determined, vowed to not let it happen again. She hoped that the cool air and some work would get her mind back in the game, away from the cute blonde that was currently residing in her brains. _Couldn’t she have taken French?_ she thought. _That would’ve made everything so much easier._

In the meantime, halfway across the campus, JJ was still wondering what just happened between herself and her teacher. She couldn’t figure out what she did wrong, or if she did something to offend the other woman. She knew she had laid the flirting on pretty thick, but she had done that in their earlier conversations as well, and it hadn’t seem to bother her then.

She was glad it was almost time for soccer practice, as she hoped it would take her mind off of Ms. Reynolds for a while. She made her way back to her dorm to retrieve her gym bag from her room. She chuckled when Garcia didn’t even register her coming in as she was typing on her keyboard furiously. _Yep, definitely met someone_ , JJ thought. After having gathered what she needed, she walked across campus to the sports building.

She was the first one in the locker rooms, and a quick glance at her watch told her she still had a good twenty minutes to spare. After her scare last week, she didn’t mind being a bit early, so she got dressed in her training gear and waited for the rest to join her. After fifteen minutes her teammates started trickling in and she sat staring off into space waiting for them to get ready.


	7. Chapter 6

“Where the hell were you Friday night?” JJ was shaken out of her reverie as her friend waltzed in the locker room.

“I told you, I couldn’t get in. Ms Reynolds caught me,” JJ explained again. She had texted her friends when she went back to her dorm to tell them she couldn’t make it, but they were probably too drunk already to have remembered.

“Who?”

“Ms Reynolds. The Spanish sub.”

“Oh, the hot one,” Amy smiled knowingly. “That explains why you actually listened.”

That was true. JJ had entertained the thought of going in anyway, but something stopped her. She knew she could get away with it, but somehow, the thought of disappointing her teacher made her just return to her dorm, and watch a movie on her laptop instead. And now, if Ms. Reynolds’ reaction from earlier was any indication, it seemed as if she had disappointed her anyway.

But Amy didn’t need to know any of that.

“Anyway, what did I miss?” she asked instead.

“Nothing much. Cindy got wasted again. Tried to sex up half of the guys at the bar, didn’t even manage to bring one of them home. It was fun to watch her try, though,” Amy answered with a grin.

“I’ll bet.”

“And that hot teacher of yours? She’s got moves, girl,” Amy then said.

“You eh, you saw her?” JJ asked, trying to sound casual, but failing miserably.

“Hell yeah, everybody did. She had quite the audience. She was dancing with that security guard, you know, the really hot black guy?”

“The bald one?”

“Yeah, him. Anyway, the guy’s a major flirt. When she was getting drinks, or just watching around the bar, he was talking to everything with two legs and two breasts,” Amy said.

“Including you?” JJ asks.

“Well, yes. I mean, I do have legs and breasts, surely you must have noticed that,” Amy teased.

“Oh, that’s what they are. I thought you just stuffed your bra with toilet paper or something,” JJ laughed as she turned around, trying to leave the locker room.

When Amy’s shirt hit her in the back of the head, it just made her laugh even harder.

Emily sat down on the bleachers and opened her briefcase, taking out some work. She started going over her notes for her first class of the day. She was trying to find the right way to teach her class, because, since it wasn’t a mandatory course for most students, there was a great difference in the levels of the students. A few students already had a pretty extended basic knowledge, while the others couldn’t even understand the easiest sentences. She knew she shouldn’t bother, as she probably wouldn’t be staying at the school long enough to actually see the results of her teaching method, but she was a perfectionist, and she wanted to do the best she could. Even if she wasn’t an actual teacher and it wouldn’t really matter anyway, she wanted to give it her best.

As she was sitting there, trying to come up with a decent teaching method, she saw the girls’ soccer team making their way to the field. She didn’t really pay attention to them as they were warming up, she just kept focused on her notes.

When the warming-up was over and the girls were running around the field doing their training routine, Emily casted a couple of glances over to them. She wasn’t by any means a soccer fan, in fact, she didn’t really care much for any kind of team sport, but even she could see the team was good. Although Emily didn’t really pay much attention to any of the players, she noticed that one of the forwards in particular had exceptional skills. She left her notes for a while, instead following the talented player with her eyes. Her heart skipped a beat when she noticed it was Jennifer. She had completely forgotten that the younger girl had mentioned that she was waiting until practice started. Had she remembered, she would have chosen any other place to go over her notes.

But now that Emily was sitting there, watching the girl who had made her so confused, her concentration was lost. Her notes completely forgotten, she sat watching the team, and one of them in particular, practice. She was so engrossed watching the blonde, she didn’t even realize someone had sat down next to her, until that person started talking.

“Hey there Princess, you’re looking awfully thoughtful today,” Morgan said, with his characteristic smile.

“Just going over my classes. You know, gotta act the part, right?” Emily responded with a smile, hoping Morgan hadn’t seen where her attention had really been. “So, did you find anything after I left Friday?”

“No, nothing,” Morgan answered seriously, before adding with a shit-eating grin, “except for a couple of phone numbers.”

“God, you’re really such a pig sometimes. And please tell me you’re not gonna call any of them.”

“Of course not, I already threw them away. But it’s nice to know I still got it.”

“Yeah, with college students who are ten years younger than you.”

“That makes it even better,” Morgan grinned.

He looked at the soccer field, and noticed that practice is over, and that the players were gathering up their stuff. He checked his watch to see what time it was, and cursed when he saw he was almost late for work.

“Shit, I gotta go. My shift starts in a few minutes. See you, Prentiss.”

“Bye Morgan,” Emily said, smiling amusedly.

It was nice to see how Morgan also showed remarkable work ethics for his job as campus security, even though it was not really necessary.

JJ watched the interaction from her spot on the field, trying to figure out what was happening. She had thought the flirting wasn’t one-sided, but now, looking at the two people on the bleachers, she wasn’t so sure. On top of that, Amy had said the two had been dancing together, making her wonder if something was going on between the two of them. The mere thought of Ms. Reynolds and the security guy together made her jealous. And then she felt like a complete ass, because no matter how much she wanted to, nothing could ever happen between her and Ms. Reynolds. She had too much respect for her to continue pursuing her teacher, knowing she probably wasn’t even interested, but also that it was strictly forbidden for teachers to fraternize with students.

Realizing she had already crossed the line with Ms. Reynolds, she decided to stop the flirting and the looks, and let the other woman be.


	8. Chapter 7

Emily spent the following week trying to come up with a way to find new leads. JJ spent the week trying to ignore her attraction to her teacher. She had an important game on Saturday, and she couldn’t afford to be distracted now. Despite her earlier resolution, her Spanish class on Monday involved a lot of discreet ogling and staring – although by the grins Garcia was sending her way, she deduced that she wasn’t as discreet as she thought. The rest of the week, she was focused on soccer, and soccer alone.

On the day of the game, JJ was very quiet, and shut herself off from her friends. If they didn’t win, the team would be excluded from the championship, and lose their chance to become champion. As captain of the team, the blame would fall entirely on her, and she had a hard time dealing with that kind of pressure.

As it turned out, she needn’t have worried. Five minutes before the end of the game, the Riverdale team was leading two against one, with both JJ and Amy having scored for their team. All JJ’s worries from before the match were gone. This was why she had taken up soccer in the first place; the rush, the thrill she got when she scored a point, or managed to take the ball from her opponents and make her way to the other team’s side of the field, which is what she was doing at that moment.

Emily sat in the bleachers, watching with rapt attention as she saw the blonde take the ball from a girl twice her size without any trouble, and rapidly progress to the opposing team’s goal. A couple of rows before her, a girl she recognized from her class jumped up and started cheering. The girl was dressed in clothes so bright it hurt her eyes, and she was wearing a hat shaped like a soccer ball, but Emily barely paid her any attention, she was so concentrated on the game, and one player in particular.

JJ felt like she had wings. She deftly avoided a tackle, jumping over the opponent’s outstretched legs. The entire audience held their breath as JJ came up in front of the goal, with only the goalkeeper between the ball and the net. She aimed and kicked the ball as hard as she could, and watched helplessly as the goalkeeper’s fingers touched the ball, changing its course – right into the top corner of the goal.

The entire audience jumped up, cheering and screaming, and JJ was buried under her celebrating teammates as the scoreboard changed to 3-1 for the Riverdale team. The rest of the game was a formality; the opposing team had no chance of turning the score around, and they knew it. After a couple of minutes of the ball being passed around aimlessly, the whistle sounded, indicating the end of the match.

Emily watched as the players put on their tracksuits over their soccer clothes, since it was a cold day, and make a small victory round over the field. Some of the players left the field quickly, while others, who had friends or family on the bleachers, stayed outside a while longer. Emily stayed until the entire team had made their way off the field. Deciding she should just go home, Emily gathered her purse, and stepped down from the bleachers. She had parked her car on the eastern parking lot, meaning she had to walk behind the bleachers to get there. And that’s when they finally caught a break in the case.

Behind the bleachers, Emily saw two people acting suspiciously, so she hung back to see what was happening. As soon as she saw money being handed over in exchange for a small package, she knew she was witnessing a drug deal. She was too far away to be able to make out their faces, so she carefully took a few steps closer, but they spotted her. The two broke up, running in opposite directions. Emily leaped at the one closest to her and grabbed his jacket. After a short struggle, the guy managed to shrug off his jacket, and before Emily had the chance to charge after him, he had disappeared in the crowd of people that was leaving after the game. Emily had seen the other person run off in the direction of the sports building, so with the jacket still in her hands, she started searching the building.

“We did it, JJ, we won!” Amy screamed in JJ’s ear as they entered the locker room.

JJ didn’t react right away. She was still reveling in the rush of winning the game, still enjoying the sound of the audience erupting in cheers, and the feel of her teammates congratulating her, patting her on the back. She broke out in a grin.

“Yeah, we did,” she said.

But as soon as she had said it, doubt began to settle in her mind again. This was only the semi-final. In a couple of weeks, they would be playing the final. In a couple of weeks, JJ had to prove her worth, for real. She was the youngest to make captain for decades, and she knew people were waiting for her to fail. So far, she had done all right, but what if she couldn’t handle the pressure? Uncertainty overtook JJ, and she sat down.

Amy, being familiar with the pensive nature of her friend, let her be, knowing it would pass in a few moments.

JJ didn’t start undressing until the first girls stepped out of the shower stalls, and by the time JJ was finished with her shower, everyone had already left, leaving her alone in the room. Remembering she had to go to the after-game talk in the coaches’ office, she quickly started dressing. She put on her bra and panties and was just buttoning her jeans when suddenly she heard the door open. Startled, she turned around to see who had entered, and her eyes widened when she realized who the intruder was.


	9. Chapter 8

There, standing in front of her with her mouth agape, was the woman who had been the center of many of her dreams lately, and JJ couldn’t help a smirk forming when she saw her teacher blushing profusely.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” Emily said, quickly turning around.

JJ quickly threw her shirt on, and looked amusedly at the teacher, who was fidgeting with the jacket she had in her hands, awkwardly staring at the floor with her back to JJ.

 _And what a lovely back_ , JJ thought.

“You can turn around now, I’m dressed,” JJ said after a few moments.

Emily slowly turned around, still looking at the floor, and cautiously lifted her gaze up to JJ’s face – after lingering a few seconds at the girl’s chest. She knew she was never going to get the visual of JJ in just her bra out of her mind.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized again. “I thought I saw an old friend of mine and I followed her inside the building. I thought I saw her come in here, but I must have been wrong,” she offered as an explanation.

“Well, it’s just me in here,” JJ smiled. “Maybe she went in one of the other locker rooms?” she suggested, trying to help.

“Thanks, I’ll try that. Thank you. And, ehm, sorry again,” she said, before turning around. Mid-turn, she changed her mind, and she faced JJ again.

“You were really good today,” she complimented the blonde, before turning around again, this time leaving for real.

“Thank you,” JJ said to Emily’s retreating form.

Grinning like a fool, she watched Emily close the door. She had seen the adorable blush on her teacher’s face when she saw her standing there half naked, and, more importantly, she had noticed the way her gaze lingered just a few seconds too long on her chest.

_Yeah, she’s definitely interested._

Her happy thoughts were interrupted when Amy stormed inside.

“Jareau, get your ass out of here, we need to go over the match with coach!”

Figures. They had won the match three to one, and still their coach wasn’t satisfied. JJ sighed, and followed Amy into the office. She had hoped to see her teacher there, but was disappointed when all she saw were her teammates and her coach.

In the meantime, Emily had searched the remaining rooms in the sports building. All of them were empty, except for the coaches’ office where most of the soccer team were gathered, including their coach. She noticed that many of them were still wearing their tracksuits, giving Emily no clue as to whom she had followed inside. Since she didn’t have a valid excuse to enter the office, she left the sports building in search of the buyer.

Still a bit shaky from the unexpected encounter in the locker room, Emily walked back, looking around her. As she reached the bleachers, she saw that the drug-buying stranger was long gone, as suspected. All she had now was the red leather jacket she was still holding. Looking around for anyone who could help identify its owner, she saw a girl standing close to her.

“Hey, do you know who this belongs to?” Emily asked the student, showing her the jacket. The jacket was rather distinguishable, so she hoped that the student had seen it before.

“Sort of. I don’t know him, but I’ve seen him hanging around here,” the girl said.

“Can you tell me what he looks like?” Emily asked, hoping to get a clearer description. She hadn’t been able to make out much of his facial features as she was running after him.

“Not really. Just that he has short, dark brown hair. Why?”

It wasn’t helpful, at all, but Emily could hardly blame the girl for that, so she tried not to let her disappointment show.

“Well, maybe someone else here knows him, and we can get his jacket returned.”

“Oh, right. Sorry I can’t be of more help,” the student apologized, before walking away.

Emily watched her go, before turning her attention to the jacket. She wanted to search the pockets, but she didn’t have any evidence gloves on her, and she didn’t want to risk compromising any possible evidence. At that moment, she saw Morgan run up to her.

 “Hey, what happened?” he asked.

“I’m pretty sure I witnessed a drug deal just now,” Emily said.

She explained what she had seen under the bleachers, and how she had followed the suspect into the sports building, and who she found there – leaving out the half-naked Jennifer she had encountered in the locker room.

“It has to be someone from the soccer team,” Emily concluded.

“Are you sure?” Morgan asked.

“Yeah. The person I followed was wearing a tracksuit, like the soccer team. And there was no one in the building, except for the team. It’s gotta be one of them.”

“Okay. I’ll call Hotch, let him know what’s going on. Do you know who the buyer is?” he asked.

“No, he was gone when I came back. All I have is his jacket,” she said dejectedly, handing Morgan the jacket.

“Okay, I’ll make sure this gets into evidence,” he said.

Then he looked at her for a second.

“You look tired. You should go home. There’s nothing you can do here, so go home and get some rest while you can. Hotch will want to have a briefing tomorrow.”

Emily nodded, knowing he was right.

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

With a tired smile, she turned around and started walking towards her car. She couldn’t help but feeling both disappointed and happy. Disappointed that she hadn’t been able to identify their suspect, but ecstatic that they had finally managed to find a lead.

She had been home for half an hour when Hotch called. He informed her that her presence was required at a briefing of the case the next morning. She was already expecting that, so she readily agreed and hung up the phone. She sighed, poured herself a glass of wine, and sat down on her couch, trying to get the images of the half-naked blonde out of her mind. Unsuccessfully.

On Sunday morning, Emily made her way to Quantico, ready for the briefing. She was one of the last ones to enter the conference room. As she made her way through the crowd, her eye immediately fell onto the large dry-erase board standing at the far end of the room. The board had pictures of every member of the soccer team and the coach on it, held up by magnets. She walked over to the board, and took the picture of Jennifer down from the board.

“You can eliminate her as a suspect. I saw her in the locker room, she wasn’t the one I followed into the building,” Emily explained.

She saw Morgan raise an eyebrow at her statement, but luckily, he didn’t comment, and neither did the other agents.

 “And I’m also sure those two,” Emily pointed at two pictures, “had their regular clothes on in the office. Our unsub wouldn’t have had time to change, so they can’t be the one we’re looking for.”

“Okay, so that leaves everybody else on the team, including the coach,” Morgan surmised, taking the picture down. “Can we exclude any of them?”

“Well, the unsub was rather tall, so I’d say anyone under 5 foot 4 is not who we’re looking for,” Emily said.

“Okay then,” Hotch said once those team members were removed from the board, leaving eight suspects. “What else do we know?”

Emily leaned back against a desk, listening to what the other agents had found out. Morgan caught her attention, searching her face and silently asking for more information, but Emily chose to ignore him.

“Apart from the soccer team, all we have to go on is the buyer. How far are we on that?” Hotch proceeded.

“Not far,” Morgan answered. “Nothing on the jacket that can help us find its owner. We found his phone in one of the pockets, but it’s a pay-as-you-go number, untraceable. Our analyst is still working on it, but chances that it will pay off are slim.”

“Do we have the phone here?” Emily asked.

“Yeah, right here,” one of the other agents answered, picking up an evidence bag.

Emily put on a pair of gloves and took the phone out of the bag. The phone was still working, so she searched it for received messages and calls, and searched the contact list. All the logs had been deleted, but the contact list held some information. Emily scanned for a name that appeared useful, and pressed the call button.

“Hi, this is Lauren Reynolds I’m a teacher at Riverdale,” she started when the call was answered. “I found this phone after a soccer game at the university yesterday, and I’m trying to locate the owner. Can you tell me whose phone this is? Yes. Really? Do you know if he’s a student here? All right, thank you so much. Bye.”

Closing the call, she looked at the other agents.

“Our buyer’s name is Billy Connor. He’s dating one of the students at Riverdale, and apparently he’s bad at repaying loans. Eddy, the guy I just spoke with, says he owes him more than seven hundred bucks. Wonder what he needed those for,” she said.

“All right. Let’s find Mr. Connor and see if we can get Eddy his money back,” Hotch drily responded, and with that, everyone went back to work.


	10. Chapter 9

Emily had been working at the university for close to two months now, and so far, she had found nothing, apart from the locker room fiasco two weeks ago. Billy Connor still refused to give up his dealer, and with no further evidence, they had to let him go. With him, they lost what was pretty much their only hope of breaking the case. But Emily kept working diligently, desperately trying to find new leads. She had gone to the regular student-hangout places, she had mingled with the teachers, and she had patrolled the campus on various occasions, looking for anything out of the ordinary. So far, she had walked in on two couples – and one guy alone – having sex, she had found a lost puppy, and she had caught some people dumping garbage on campus ground, but nothing drug-related.

Emily was starting to think that the entire operation would prove to be a bust, but she had promised herself that she would give everything she could to this assignment, so she kept on trying. That is why she found herself on an abandoned campus at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday night. She had been walking around for nearly three hours now, and she had just decided to call it a night, when she heard something in the bushes behind her. She quickly turned around, staring intently into the dark, but she couldn’t see anything. She was certain, however, that she had heard something – or someone – in the bushes, so she started reaching for her gun, which she had tucked inside the waistband of her jeans.

“Who is there?” she called out, firmly gripping the gun.

There was no answer, so she slowly drew her gun out of her pants, until –

“Ms Reynolds? Is that you?” a familiar voice asked.

Emily waited a second and saw no one other than her student Jennifer come out of the bushes.

“Jennifer? What on earth’s name were you doing in there?”

“I wanted to go for a walk,” the blonde shrugged.

“In the bushes?”

“No, of course not. I heard something behind me, and when I looked I saw someone – you, apparently – but you looked really creepy and I was just being cautious,” JJ was quick to explain.

“Are you calling me creepy?”

“A minute ago, yes. Now, not so much,” JJ smiled.

“Good to know. But seriously, what were you doing out here?”

“I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to go for a walk. And you?” JJ asked pointedly.

“Oh, ehm…”

_Good question._

“I eh, couldn’t sleep either, and I live close by, so I thought, why not go for a walk?”

“Huh. Great minds really do think alike, then,” JJ said with a smile.

“Seems like it,” Emily agreed.

They stood there for a minute, awkwardly looking at each other.

“So, I should probably head back to the dorms,” JJ started.

“I’ll walk you back,” Emily offered.

“Oh no, really, that’s not necessary. I can find my own way back.”

“I’m sure you can, but I can’t have my students walking around campus in the middle of the night. If something happens, I’d never forgive myself.”

“In that case, let’s go,” JJ readily agreed. Ten more minutes with this gorgeous woman, who would really object to that?

Some ten minutes later, they stood at the entrance of the dorm building.

“So, you wanna walk me up to my room as well? JJ asked with a cocky smile.

 _Yes!_ Emily thought.

“No, I think you can find your own way up, I should get back home,” she said instead.

Before the locker room incident, Emily already found herself drawn to the young blonde; always searching her out during class, looks that linger a little too long. Something about Jennifer made her want to learn more. She was intrigued, interested, but after the encounter in the locker room, things changed. It had added a physical aspect to Emily’s interest, and while the lingering looks already bordered on inappropriate student-teacher interactions, the dreams and fantasies that invaded Emily’s mind after seeing the girl partially undressed undoubtedly crossed that line.

“But what if something happens on the way over? You know, there are some really crazy people in the dorms, who knows what they might do,” JJ tried.

Emily hesitated. She really, _really_ shouldn’t be going up with this girl. The teasing and flirting was already pushing it, but she knew this could get seriously out of hand if she walked the girl to her room.

On the other hand, the girl was right. If something were to happen, it would be on her, and she didn’t want that on her conscience. Although if she were completely honest, she knew that the chances of something happened inside the dorms were slim, she just wasn’t ready to cut her time with the girl short.

“Fine, I’ll walk you up to your room,” she gave in.

They entered the building, and JJ led the way to her dorm room on the third floor.

“So, this is me,” JJ said as they reached it.

“Okay, you’ve made it back safely, now I can go home. Goodnight, Jennifer,” Emily said hastily, and with that, she turned around.

“Ms Reynolds, wait,” JJ said, and Emily turned around again.

Emily turned around, thinking that maybe the girl wanted to thank her for walking her up to her room or something, but what she didn’t expect was the blonde throwing herself at her, pressing their lips together. JJ’s lips started moving against her own, and Emily, against better judgment, responded. When their tongues found their way to the other and touched, Emily saw stars, and she was pretty sure JJ was feeling the same thing if the loud, deep moan the girl let out was anything to go by.

Soon, JJ started trailing kisses down Emily’s jaw line, to her neck, latching onto her pulse point. It felt so good, so amazing, but it also reminded Emily that they shouldn’t be doing this, so she turned her head away slightly.

“Jen- Jennifer, we shouldn’t – Oh God,” Emily moaned, as JJ’s hands had found their way under her shirt, and into her bra.

“Wait, stop Jennifer,” Emily tried again, panting. “We should stop, this isn’t right.”

She couldn’t care less if the school found out about this and fired her, she wasn’t even a real teacher anyway. But it would certainly get her kicked off of the investigation, and Hotch would kill her if he found out, so she tried to put a stop to JJ’s movements, however good they may feel.

“I can get fired for this,” she managed to get out.

Upon hearing this, JJ went rigid. She really liked the woman, and kissing and touching her like that had felt really good, but the last thing she wanted was to get her into trouble. Also because that would mean they wouldn’t see each other again.

“Oh God, I’m so, _so_ sorry,” she apologized, removing her hands from beneath Emily’s shirt, and taking a big step back.


	11. Chapter 10

Both women were looking at each other, mortified. Emily was touching her lips with her fingers, like she still couldn’t believe JJ’s lips had been on them earlier.

JJ felt embarrassed, ecstatic, remorseful, afraid and unbelievably happy at the same time. And the fact that their make-out session had turned her on beyond belief was not helping matters either. She tried to say something, anything that would make the situation better, but her mind refused to cooperate. After a minute of opening and closing her mouth, she just turned around and stepped into her dorm room, leaving a dumbfounded Emily in the hallway.

Inside, she closed the door and leaned against it, hands pressed over her face, wishing she could just disappear. She didn’t get too much time to contemplate her actions, however.

“Tell me!”

Startled, JJ looked up, and she saw Garcia standing in front of her, hands on her hips, looking as intimidating as she possibly could while wearing a night shirt with at least fourteen colors and a pink nightcap.

 _Dammit!_ JJ mentally cursed. In her aroused state of mind, she had forgotten that she shared her dorm with the bubbly blonde.

“Hi, Garcia,” she greeted seemingly calmly, but she knew it wouldn’t fool Garcia.

“Don’t ‘hi’ me, young lady. I want to know exactly what and who you were doing outside. Or you know what, skip to the who-part, I’m pretty sure I know what was going on outside. Who was it?” Garcia demanded to know.

Without giving JJ the time to respond, she continued her questioning.

“And what were you even doing sexing up some girl? I thought you had the hots for our Spanish beauty?”

Again, JJ didn’t answer, but Garcia knew her friend and she had a pretty good idea what the guilty look on her face meant.

“No! JJ, you didn’t… You and… Oh my God. OH MY GOD!”

“Calm down!” JJ hissed. “You want the whole building to know?”

“But you… And she… Wow. This is huge,” Garcia let out.

JJ just let herself fall onto her bed and pressed the pillow over her head, ignoring Garcia.

The perky blonde, who was still trying to wrap her mind around things, finally noticed JJ’s state of mind, and she sat down on her friend’s bed.

“JJ, honey, are you okay?” she quietly asked.

JJ mumbled something incomprehensible in her pillow, causing Garcia to frown in confusion.

“Can you say that again? And this time without trying to eat your pillow?”

JJ lifted up her pillow, long enough to mutter “I fucked up”, and then put the pillow back. She lay like that for a good minute before removing the pillow again, looking up at Garcia.

“I kissed her, and she kissed back, and it was so, _so_ good, and so very wrong. She’s my teacher, Pen. This could get her fired. Hell, this could get her arrested!” JJ let out, getting more worked up by the second.

“Okay, first of all, calm down. You’re starting to hyperventilate, and I don’t have any paper bags. Breathe, honey, breathe.”

Once JJ had calmed down a bit, she continued.

“You’re not a minor, so she did nothing illegal. Highly unethical, sure, but that won’t get her arrested. And secondly, she’s not gonna get fired, because you won’t tell, I won’t tell, and if she tells… Well, then she’s really stupid.”

This made JJ laugh a bit. Garcia smiled, seeing her tactic worked.

“Do you like her?” she then asked JJ.

“Yes,” JJ responded without hesitation.

“And does she like you?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know,” JJ said, suddenly sounding a lot less sure and a lot more miserable. “It doesn’t even matter, it can’t happen anyway. She’s still my teacher.”

“Your substitute teacher,” Garcia corrected with a grin.

“Yes, my substitute teacher. What’s your point?”

“My point is, Wicked Wendy will be back soon, God help us all, and tall, dark and gorgeous won’t be your teacher anymore. Just be cool for a while, and then you can jump her bones all you want,” Garcia explained as if it was the most normal thing on earth.

JJ was listening to her explanation with rapt attention, but as soon as she heard the words ‘jump her bones’, images entered her head that had her blushing profusely.

“Okay, so I’m gonna go sleep now. And if you’re gonna do what I’m pretty sure you wanna do right now, please go do it in the shower,” and with those words, she went back to bed, leaving JJ blushing even more.

In the meantime, Emily was outside having a breakdown similar to JJ’s. She had all but sprinted out of the hallway, and nearly broke her neck falling down the stairs in her hurry to get out of the building, muttering ‘what have I done, what have I done?’ over and over again. Once she was outside of the building, she started pacing, trying to calm herself down.

 _‘Oh, God, what have I done? Hotch is gonna kill me’_ , she thought. She mentally debated whether she should tell her boss or not. Telling would be the right thing to do, but it would also almost certainly get her kicked off the assignment, if not fired. Getting kicked off the assignment would also mean that she wouldn’t get to see Jennifer again, and that was something she was not ready for. Even if the night could never repeat itself, it was still a reassuring thought that she would be able to see the girl a few times a week.

She’s not really sure how it happened, but somewhere during her interactions with the girl, she had come to really like her, and admiring from a distance was better than not admiring at all.

Still going over her options, and reveling in the memory of Jennifer kissing and touching her, she made her way back to her car in the parking lot at the far end of the campus. She was so deep in thought that she didn’t notice the commotion at the parking lot at first. Only when she heard someone begging ‘please stop’, did she see what was happening.

Two dark figures were beating up a young man, who was lying on the ground, covering his face with his arms to protect himself.

“Hey!” Emily yelled, running towards them.

The two assailants first looked at her, then at each other, and then sprinted off towards their car. By the time Emily reached the victim, all she saw was a dark sedan speeding away.

She kneeled next to the boy on the ground and saw he was battling unconsciousness, his eyes slowly closing.

“Stay with me. Come on, honey, stay with me. Look at me,” she pleaded with him.

When she saw him opening his eyes, she gave him a smile.

“That’s it, good. Keep looking at me, you’re gonna be all right. Can you tell me your name?”

“J… Jackson,” the guy managed to get out.

“All right, Jackson. Just keep looking at me and stay still. I’m gonna call an ambulance, all right?”

She quickly dialed 911 and told the dispatcher the situation and their location. She hung up when she was told an ambulance would arrive soon.

“They’re on their way, just hang on, okay? You’re doing great,” Emily said.

She kept talking to him, trying to keep him awake. He was in no shape to be questioned, so she didn’t even attempt to ask him questions.

When the ambulance arrived, she called Hotch and Morgan to let them know what happened. She knew that the 911 dispatcher would have called the local police and that they would show up any minute, but chances were that this was connected to their case, so she wanted the FBI involved as much as possible.


	12. Chapter 11

Campus security arrived while the paramedics were strapping the victim onto a gurney. Morgan had thankfully been on duty, so when Emily called, he told his colleague that another faculty member had found an unconscious man on campus. They had beaten the local cops to the parking lot, and while they were talking to Emily, two uniformed officers arrived.

It had taken them long enough to arrive at the scene. That, and the fact that it were two rookies who showed up, told Emily that beatings on campus grounds weren’t high on the local police department’s priority list. The cops’ actions clearly showed they wanted to just hand everything over to campus security, but since they don’t have jurisdiction over criminal matters, that wasn’t possible. It didn’t make the officers work any harder, though. They barely asked questions, didn’t look for evidence, and when Emily tried to offer a suggestion, they just scoffed and the tallest of them looked at her condescendingly.

“Look lady, just leave the real work to us. You just stand there and look pretty,” he said, barely giving her a glance before he turned back to his partner.

Morgan thought Emily was going to kill the man. He tried to subtly position himself so that he could intercept Emily should she lunge at the officer, but luckily, that wasn’t necessary. Emily used every ounce of self-restraint she had to stop herself from attacking the guy, because she knew that doing so would only result in getting herself arrested. Instead she settled on shooting him and his partner murderous looks and intimidating the hell out of them in the process.

Both cops felt Emily’s furious gaze on them, and kept throwing uncomfortable looks at each other. They had already wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, but Emily’s intimidating gaze made them even more eager. In their opinion, it wasn’t even an interesting case to start with, so they walked over to Morgan and his co-worker, and after a short conversation they got back in their car and left.

Shaking her head in disbelief at their unprofessionalism, Emily took her phone and called for a crime scene unit, since the local cops clearly didn’t find any evidence.

While Morgan and the other security guy were talking, Emily wrote down everything she had seen and heard, which was mostly descriptions of the suspects and of the car, including its license plate. She gave it to Morgan when his partner wasn’t looking. She had made sure to also include the cops’ names and license plate, so that they could be disciplined for their unprofessional behavior. Morgan would make sure that Hotch and his team received a copy of everything, and that he and his colleague were gone when CSU arrived, leaving Emily free to go home. As she turned to her car, the second security man walked over to Emily.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Miss,” he said, giving Emily a warm smile. “And I’m sorry for the way those cops treated you. They were out of line.”

“Thank you, Mr Meyers,” Emily replied, reading his name tag. “That’s really kind, but unnecessary. They should be apologizing, not you. But I appreciate it.”

“Call me Patrick. And for what it’s worth, I would’ve decked the guy if he talked to me like that, but I’m glad you didn’t. You’re too pretty to be sitting in jail.”

With a wink, he turned around to join Morgan and thankfully he didn’t see Emily rolling her eyes before she stepped in her car. By the time she got home, Emily’s mind was a complete mess after everything that had happened that night. Images of the victim being beaten, the dark figures running away, Patrick the security guy trying to flirt with her, but more importantly, Jennifer pushed up against her own body, her lips on hers, her hand under her shirt… She tried taking a cold shower to clear her head, but it didn’t really work.

She briefly considered going to bed for a while, but a quick glance at the clock made her change her mind. Her alarm clock would be going off in a little under an hour, and she didn’t think she would be able to fall asleep anyway, not after the night she just had. So instead she started making coffee and booted up her laptop, trying to get some work done.

As she was going over her case files, her phone buzzed, indicating a text message from Morgan. _You and Patrick seemed pretty cozy earlier. Should I give you his number so you can call him when all this is over?_

She groaned when she read the text. She really didn’t need any more distractions than she already had. She quickly typed out a response to Morgan, hoping he would leave it at that. _Thanks, but no thanks. He’s really not my type._ She hoped she didn’t give too much away with her reply, but to be honest, she didn’t really care either way.

Just before she had to leave for work, she noticed she had an email from Hotch. It said that the license plate she had given them had gotten them some useful information, and that they were close to finding names, and making arrests. When she read the final part of the email, it made her blush. _Don’t grow too attached to your students – it might be over soon,_ it read.

 _Too freaking late_ , she thought.

Shoving all thoughts about the case and Jennifer away in her mind, she grabbed her briefcase and headed out the door. She got to the university fifteen minutes early, went to her assigned classroom, and waited for her students to come in. It started out as any normal day. Little did she know that in a couple of hours, everything would change.


	13. Chapter 12

JJ and Garcia were standing outside the school building, waiting for Amy. They often went for a coffee on Thursdays, seeing as they all had a free hour at the same time then. Garcia didn’t have any classes at all before noon, and JJ’s class got out a little early, leaving the two to wait for Amy, who had made a habit of arriving late. When she finally joined JJ and Garcia, JJ thought she saw Lauren looking at her from a distance. She lifted her arm in a half-wave, and her heart leaped when she saw the other woman wave back. Maybe not all hope was lost after all.

Emily watched the blonde and her two friends leave, and a beacon of hope formed inside of her. _Maybe, when all this is over…_ She really needed to talk to the blonde, so she followed her and her friends.

Meanwhile, Hotch and his team had been working non-stop ever since they had gotten Emily’s phone call about the attack. Two agents had been sent to the hospital as protection detail and to question the victim when he woke up.

Hotch had their technical analyst hack into the files of the local police department, and keep track of any info about the attack, but since the officers hadn’t done their jobs properly, it was all rather useless. No updates came other than the initial report, which was pretty meager to begin with.

The real breakthrough had come when Morgan called in with Emily’s info. All the data were put in the computers immediately, and everything there was to be found, would be found.

“Lynch, where are we on our suspects?” Hotch asked, waltzing into the analyst’s office.

“License plate is registered to a Tom Brooks. Twenty-five years old, born in Maryland, moved to DC four years ago. Squeaky clean, not even a parking ticket,” Kevin Lynch answered.

“Keep looking. I want to know everything; friends, family, shoe size, everything,” Hotch ordered as he left the office.

“Yes sir,” the analyst answered, already typing away.

Hotch returned to his office, just in time to pick up his ringing phone. One of the agents who were standing guard at the hospital was calling to notify Hotch that Jackson Miller, the victim, had regained consciousness. That was about all the good news he could give, since Jackson hadn’t really seen anything. All he had seen was someone giving something to someone else, while a third person was sitting in the car. When they noticed him, one of them ran away, and the other two started beating him up, but he was too shocked to see or remember anything about them. It was just an unfortunate case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This new setback made Hotch check up on every agent working the case, trying to find anything useful. Kevin Lynch was getting the majority of the calls, with Hotch demanding information the poor man couldn’t give.  When the last search Lynch set up also came up empty, he decided to do some more creative searching, and he pulled up Brooks’ Facebook page. Wielding through the series of Tom Brookses in the search results, he finally found the one he was looking for, only to find his profile was for friends only. So he did what any good FBI employee would do – he hacked the profile.

Fifteen seconds later Hotch received a phone call from an overly excited technical analyst.

“It’s the girlfriend!” was how Kevin greeted his boss.

“Excuse me?”

“Tom Brooks’ girlfriend is a student at Riverdale. And she plays soccer. It’s her, Hotch! It’s gotta be her! She must’ve borrowed her boyfriend’s car or something,” Kevin said happily.

After scribbling down every bit of information Kevin had found about this girl, Hotch called Morgan.

“Morgan, it’s Hotch. Lynch got us a name, Ellen Fielding. She’s Brooks’ girlfriend. Can you search her locker, get us enough for a judge to sign a search warrant?”

“Sure thing,” Morgan responded.

He went to the security’s office and checked which locker was registered to Ellen Fielding. Lockers remained property of the university, so he didn’t need a search warrant. And being a security officer, part of his job consisted of keeping the campus free of drugs and weapons, so he was allowed to search lockers and bags without apparent reason.

They would, however, need a search warrant for the girl’s dorm room, but the bag of pills and the thousand dollars in cash he found in the girl’s locker would make sure that getting a warrant wouldn’t be a problem.

The search in Fielding’s dorm room led to a warrant for her arrest, along with many others, as they had gotten enough evidence that she was involved in the trafficking, as well as the attack the previous night. They even found her little black book, with names and phone numbers of her clients and accomplices. The names were encoded, but it would only be a matter of time before they were linked to the actual people.

This girl turned out to be the linchpin of the drug rink. With her in custody, they would be able to shut down the entire organization. Arrest warrants were written out for everyone who was already identified as part of the organization, and an elaborate operation was set up to arrest them all simultaneously.

There was just one problem: they had no idea where the girl was. The FBI and DEA both had teams searching the campus, and Hotch had sent a picture to Morgan and Emily so they could help searching. Riverdale was a small university, and the campus was cleared in no time, with still no sign of the girl.

They had no idea that the girl was sitting in a coffee shop just off campus. The same coffee shop where JJ and Garcia were standing in line, waiting to order. The same coffee shop where Emily was standing outside, trying to figure out what to say, and trying to work up the nerve to actually go inside and talk to Jennifer.

After standing outside for two minutes, garnering looks from passers-by, she finally took a deep breath and opened the door. She walked over to Jennifer with a confident stride, checking her surroundings as she went. While she was walking she spotted another familiar face in the coffee shop. She had seen Hotch’s email about their suspect, so she recognized the girl immediately.

Emily shot a look at Jennifer, and saw that the blonde had noticed her as well. It pained her, but she decided that her talk with Jennifer could wait. Arresting Ellen Fielding and putting an end to the operation was more important right now. _This is gonna get ugly_ , Emily thought as she turned her head back towards Fielding.

“Ellen Fielding, FBI. You’re under arrest for – ”

And that’s when everything went wrong.

She vaguely heard Jennifer call out in surprise, and Emily’s heart broke when she saw the hurt expression on Jennifer’s face when she cast a glance in the blonde’s direction. Looking back at Fielding, she saw a flash of black metal, directed at a point next to Emily. Her first reflex was to push Jennifer out of the way, and the two tumbled down on the ground as the shot rang out. Emily felt a sharp pain in her side, but she didn’t pay attention to it. She didn’t notice the drops of blood that appeared on her shirt either, as she jumped up in pursuit of her suspect, who was already running out of the coffee shop.

Ellen Fielding was fast, but Emily, as a trained FBI agent, was faster, so she caught up to her quickly. With a swift tackle, Emily got the other girl to the ground. She had already cuffed her and was reading the girl her rights when she saw that the girl was unconscious, and she noticed the burning sensation in her side.

 When she looked down, she saw a red stain on her shirt, growing larger as she looked at it.


	14. Chapter 13

A quick look told Emily that the wound was nothing but a scratch. The bullet had only grazed her side, and a simple band-aid would suffice. Sighing in relief, she fished her phone out of her pocket and dialed Hotch’s number.

 _“Hotchner,”_ came the standard reply.

“Hotch, it’s me. I have Fielding in custody.”

_“We’re on our way. Where are you?”_

“Coffee shop just off campus, on the corner of 6th and Oakland.”

_“All right, we’ll be there in five. Has she said anything?”_

“No, she’s unconscious. Must’ve hit her head when I took her down. You might want to call for a bus.”

_“Will do. Nice job, Prentiss.”_

“Thank you, sir.”

Emily hung up the phone and turned around, looking right into Jennifer’s face.

“So it’s true then? You’re a cop?” JJ asked, hurt and anger mixed in her voice.

“Yes,” Emily admitted, “I’m with the FBI.”

“So you were lying? This whole time, you’ve been lying to everyone? To me?”

“No! Not about everything. Not about - Not about you, or how I feel about you,” Emily said softly.

“How can I believe you? How do I know you’re not lying, when that’s all you’ve been doing the entire time?”

“Because it’s true. I care about you. I did everything I could to keep you from being hurt.”

JJ’s face softened for a moment. She remembered how Lauren – _is that even her real name?_ – pushed her out of the way when the gun went off. She also remembered seeing the small red stain on her shirt as the brunette ran out the coffee shop, so she looked at Emily’s side and gasped as she saw how the stain had expanded.

“You’re hurt,” she said worriedly.

“Oh, no, that’s nothing. It’s just a scratch,” Emily brushed it off. “Are you okay, though?”

“I… I don’t know. I don’t know what to think, what to believe,” JJ said honestly.

“Then believe me when I say I care about you,” Emily replied.

She took a step closer to the blonde, but then saw a flurry of red and blue lights enter the streets.

“Look, we can’t talk now, but… Later, maybe?” Emily asked, a hopeful look in her eyes.

“I… Okay,” JJ agreed, much to Emily’s relief.

“Thank you,” the brunette whispered.

She saw Hotch stepping out of his car, so she gave Jennifer one last look of which she hoped it conveyed all the love and affection she felt for the young woman, and then walked away to talk to her boss. Ellen Fielding was still unconscious as she was strapped onto a gurney and loaded into an ambulance. Other agents began to question witnesses as Hotch gave Emily the once over.

“You’re hurt,” he stated simply, but with a hint of worry in his voice.

“I’m fine,” Emily replied, eager to return to Quantico to start questioning suspects. As her team was looking for Fielding, other teams were out arresting her accomplices, and Emily wanted to have their interrogations over with as soon as possible.

“Get yourself checked out by a doctor before you go to the office,” Hotch told her.

“But sir, it’s just a scratch,” Emily protested.

“Still, get it checked out. After a doctor has cleared you, you can come back to work,” Hotch said.

Emily knew not to protest further, so she went to her car and drove herself to the hospital. It turned out that the wound did require a couple of stitches, but other than that, the doctor saw no reason she couldn’t be cleared for duty. With the note okaying her for work in her hand, she thanked the doctor and walked out of the exam room. She briefly stopped at the nurse’s desk to fill out some forms before leaving the hospital.

She didn’t notice the man standing near the exit, watching her every move and following her outside. She didn’t notice him take out a small remote out of his pocket as she reached the car, and she didn’t notice him press the button as she opened the door. All she noticed was a loud blast, flashes of light, and then nothing.


	15. Chapter 14

The next morning, JJ was standing in line at the coffee shop again. A newspaper was left on one of the tables, and JJ noticed that most of the headlines were about what had happened the day before. She picked it up and flipped to the next page, reading the article.

**_Drug trafficking organization dismantled_ **

**_Washington D.C. –_ ** _Months of hard work has finally paid off yesterday, as the FBI and DEA uncovered a large drug trafficking organization operating on the Riverdale University campus. FBI spokesperson Joseph Parsons addressed the press yesterday with a statement explaining the process of the operation, which combined forces of both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration._

JJ stopped reading after that. She had lived it, she didn’t need to read about it in the papers. She was about to turn the page, as her eye caught a headline of another article, accompanying the main one.

**_FBI agent caught in explosion_ **

**_Washington D.C. –_ ** _An explosion has critically wounded a female FBI agent outside of Washington Hospital Center. The Agent, who was involved in bringing down the drug organization that was terrorizing Riverdale (see article above), was leaving the hospital after becoming injured during the arrest of drug traffickers, when a bomb under her car exploded as she was entering the vehicle. The Agent was the only one injured, and she was rushed back into the hospital immediately. At this point, it is still unknown whether she survived the explosion. Sources close to the investigation believe she was targeted because she had played a major role in bringing down the drug rink, having spent months undercover as a teacher at Riverdale University._

At this point, JJ’s hands were shaking so hard she dropped the newspaper. The article didn’t mention any names, but it wasn’t hard to determine who it was about. A female Agent, working undercover at the university – it had to be Lauren, or whatever her name was. All doubts about her feelings for the other women flew out of the window as JJ rushed outside, signalling to the nearest cab. One sentence from the article kept haunting her – _at this point, it is still unknown whether she survived the explosion_. She made it to the hospital in no time, threw some bills at the driver, and sprinted towards the front door. Impatiently, she awaited her turn at the information desk, clenching and unclenching her fists at her side.

 _She has to make it. Please, lord, let her make it, please_ , she prayed.

“Can you tell me which room Lauren Reynolds is in, please?” she asked once it was her turn.

The woman behind the desk typed something on her computer and frowned at the result.

“I’m sorry, Miss, but we don’t have anyone with that name,” she said apologetically.

“Oh, okay. Thanks.”

She turned to go back outside, but changed her mind and went further inside the hospital. She was determined to find her, even if she had to go through the entire hospital. She figured that if Lauren had been in a severe explosion, the intensive care unit would be a good place to start her search, so that’s where she headed first. At the ICU, she found a room that was guarded by two men.

 _That’s got to be her room_ , JJ thought, so she walked over to them. Seeing their FBI badges took away any doubt of who was inside the room, and she told the agents that she was a friend of the woman inside, and that she would like to see her. The agents refused, so JJ tried pleading with them, practically begging them, but they still did not let her in.

“Then can you at least tell me if she’s all right?” she asked in a small voice, but they didn’t give her that either.

Just when she had given up and decided to leave and come back another day to try again, a familiar face entered the hallway. She recognized him from the university’s security office, but judging by the badge and gun strapped on his belt, she figured that that wasn’t his real day-time job either.

Morgan startled when he saw the blonde standing in front of his partner’s hospital room. He recognized her, and for a brief moment, he wondered what on earth she was doing at the hospital. But then he thought back to his conversations with Emily; the way she had smiled when she told him the teaching job wasn’t all bad, her small blush when she mentioned finding Jennifer in the locker room, how she refused to discuss that moment with him. Then he took a closer look at the blonde in front of him, and seeing the redness around her eyes, the look of fear and something else he couldn’t place, everything clicked.

“She can go in,” he told the two agents when he realized what was happening.

JJ didn’t understand why he would let her in, but instead of questioning it, she just shot him a look of gratitude and hurried inside. The first thing she noticed were the machines surrounding the hospital bed. She hesitantly took some steps closer to the bed, and was taken aback by what she saw. Lauren looked so small, so pale. A white bandage covered her forehead, but JJ could see the red spots that indicated blood had seeped through. She had a black eye, and her lip was cut. The rest of her body was covered by sheets, but from the bruises that had formed on Emily’s face, JJ could only imagine the rest of the damage and a tear slipped from her eye. Mindful about the wires and cables that connected Emily with the machines, JJ took Emily’s hand.

“What happened to you?” she whispered to her.

“An explosion,” came a sudden voice from behind JJ.

Startled, she turned around. She hadn’t seen or heard the dark man enter, but his kind face quickly put her at ease.

“How much do you know?” he asked her.

“Not much. Just that she was involved in an undercover operation that targeted a drug organization,” JJ answered.

“She wasn’t just involved, she practically solved it on her own. She managed to uncover the one link we needed to bring the entire thing down. Once we had all the information about everyone involved, we moved in separate teams to arrest every suspect at the same time, but one must have slipped the maze. He put a bomb under her car and detonated it when she was stepping in. It’s a miracle she’s still alive,” Morgan continued, looking over at Emily.

Upon hearing this, JJ squeezed Emily’s hand a little bit harder in shock.

“Will she be okay?” she quietly asked him, her eyes fixated on Emily.

“I hope so,” Morgan replied honestly. “Other than a few cuts and bruises she came out relatively unharmed. But she hit her head pretty badly, and she’s been unconscious ever since. You never know with head wounds, but the doctors are confident she’ll wake up any minute now.”

JJ kept looking at Emily, as if she was willing her to open her eyes, but to no avail. Then she turned her head towards Morgan.

“Is she safe now?” she asked.

“We haven’t found the bomber yet, which is why she is guarded 24/7, but we’re doing everything we can to find him.”

“Why are you telling me all this?” she then wanted to know.

She imagined that everything he had just told her was pretty sensitive information that was normally passed around on a need to know basis only.

“Because she would want you to know,” he simply responded, and then he left the two women alone.

JJ stayed until visiting hours were over, but even then the nurses had to almost force her out of the room before she left.

The next day, she eagerly returned to the hospital. She didn’t stop at the reception desk, instead she went straight to Emily’s floor and room. She didn’t take notice of the fact that there were no guards, and the door was wide open. What she did notice was the empty bed, the clean sheets, and the absolute lack of proof anyone had recently been in the room.

She hurried to the nurses’ station, but no one could tell her why she was moved, or where she had gone. The only thing they knew was that she wasn’t in the hospital anymore.


	16. Epiloge

JJ and Garcia were sitting outside, enjoying the sun, chatting away. It was the end of the school year, and most students had already returned home for the summer. Making the most of the nearly-empty campus, they had stretched themselves out on the grass.

“Are you all set to go back home?” Garcia asked.

“Yeah, I just have some more things to pack that I’ve been putting off. I guess I’ll do that tomorrow. You?”

“I barely packed anything. Every time I want to start, something comes up, and now I’ve got only two days to get everything ready,” Garcia admitted, slightly panicky.

“Don’t worry, I’ll help you pack. You’ll be ready in no time,” JJ quickly offered her friend.

Garcia smiled in thanks, and looked at JJ pensively, trying to figure out whether she should ask the question she really wanted to ask. In the end, she decided to just go for it.

“Have you heard anything from her?” she asked cautiously.

“No. Not since – I haven’t. She clearly doesn’t want to see me.”

“Why would you say that? It hasn’t been that long, maybe she just –“.

“It’s been over a month,” JJ interrupted.

Five weeks and four days, to be exact, but she didn’t want Garcia to know she’d been counting the days.

“She hasn’t tried to contact me once, so what am I supposed to think?”

“Maybe she just wasn’t able to. She hadn’t woken up yet when you went to see her.”

“The doctor said he expected her to wake up soon. One day later, she was gone, and the nurses wouldn’t tell me where she had gone. What does that tell you?” JJ answered, trying to fight back her tears.

Garcia laid a comforting hand on JJ’s thigh and tried to change the subject.

“So, have you heard anything from Amy yet? Did she get home okay?”

JJ wiped at her eyes and managed a small smile, thinking about her friend’s last text message.

“Yeah. Her parents grounded her yesterday for fighting with her brother.”

“What’d she do this time?” Garcia asked.

“She locked him in a closet.”

“Oh. Well, that’s not so bad.”

“For eight hours.”

That made Garcia laugh out loud. She wanted to ask what he had done that warranted being locked in a closet for eight hours, but when she opened her mouth, she saw someone approaching them, waving his hand enthusiastically. The boy, Spencer Reid, was only fifteen years old, but easily the most intelligent person on campus. Because of his young age, he was picked on a lot, and JJ had immediately taken him under her wing.

“Oh hey, there’s Spencer,” Garcia said happily, lifting her hand to wave back at him. But when she saw two guys from the football team walk towards their friend, her face fell. “Oh no,” she let out, as she saw the taller of the two knock Spencer’s books out of his hands.

JJ had seen them too, and she was up and walking towards them in an instant.

“Whoa there, pussycat,” Garcia said, grabbing JJ’s arm. “I know that look; you wanna go all angry momma bear on them. Don’t do it,” she pleaded.

“The hell I won’t,” JJ replied angrily.

Spencer was trying to pick up his books, but the guys wouldn’t let him, and JJ and Garcia could hear them taunting the poor boy.

“Hey, knock it off!” JJ ordered.

“Or what, you’re gonna cry on me?” one of the football players said condescendingly.

“No, I’m gonna kick your ass,” JJ answered, and she pushed the guy with a force he hadn’t expected, and he fell flat on his ass.

His friend tried to help him back up, but he swatted his hand away and got back up on his own, a furious look on his face. JJ looked back at him, not afraid in the slightest, but just as angry.

Garcia stepped in between them, placing her hands on JJ’s shoulders, looking pleadingly in her eyes. She saw that her friend wasn’t going to back down, so she looked around her, trying to find anyone that might help them, and it seemed her prayers had been heard as she saw a woman approaching them.

She wanted to shout out to the person to help them, but as the woman came closer, Garcia recognized her, and the words died in her throat.

“Oh my God,” she let out instead.

It got JJ’s attention, so she turned her head in the direction Garcia was looking.

“Oh my God,” she repeated her friend’s words.

Walking towards them was Emily Prentiss, the woman she hadn’t seen for over five weeks, and whom she had missed every single day during that time.

As the woman came closer, JJ could see she had a scar just under her hairline, and she couldn’t stop staring at it. The football players, on the other hand, were only focused on her waist, where a badge and gun were attached to her hip. Realizing that nothing good would come off getting into a fight with a cop nearby, they quickly left. Spencer and Garcia both let out a breath of relief, but JJ barely noticed.

Emily stopped in front of the blonde, and looked her straight in the eye.

“Jennifer, can I talk to you for a minute,” she asked with much more confidence than she actually felt.

Before JJ could even answer, Garcia had taken Spencer by his arm, and gently led him away from the two, giving them some privacy.

“Yeah, sure,” JJ shrugged, trying to seem uninterested while her heart pounded inside her chest.

“I, ehm, I wanted to explain myself –” Emily started.

“What’s there to explain?” JJ interrupted harshly. “You lied to me! You made me believe there was something between us, and then you just left!” JJ said angrily.

“What? No, Jennifer, I didn’t just leave. The Bureau moved me to a different hospital to protect me,” Emily explained.

“And I guess you weren’t allowed to tell me where they brought you?” JJ spat back, unimpressed.

“Well, no actually. But I would have if I’d been able to.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“I was still unconscious.”

That finally softened JJ’s look.

“What? You were still in a coma when they moved you?” JJ asked with a concerned voice. “But the doctors said –“

“Yeah, they were wrong,” Emily answered wryly.

“How- How long were you-?”

“Four weeks. I woke up ten days ago. I was discharged four days ago, but I wasn’t sure… I didn’t know whether you would want to see me or not. But then Morgan told me you came to see me at the hospital, so I thought… Well, I hoped that maybe you’d let me explain myself –“

Again, JJ didn’t let Emily finish her sentence, but this time she interrupted her by throwing herself in Emily’s arms and kissing her fiercely. Emily responded by putting her arms around Jennifer, pulling her even closer.

JJ paused for a moment, looking at Emily with a pensive look.

“You know, I don’t even know your real name,” JJ chuckled.

Emily laughed as well when she realized that was true.

“Emily. My name is Emily Prentiss.”

JJ tried out the name in her mind, and decided that it fitted the brunette much better than Lauren ever did.

“Well, Emily, you and I have a lot to talk about. But not now. Now, I just want more…”

“More of wha-“ Emily tried to ask, but she was cut off by JJ’s lips again, and again, Emily wasted no time in responding.

From a distance, Garcia and Spencer looked on, Garcia with a smile on her face, while Spencer seemed horribly confused.

“What’s JJ doing with our Spanish teacher?”


End file.
